Strands of Joy

I've spent this year working on a huge project. Not only did I start designin full time after New Year's but I also signed a publishing contract with Laine at the beginning of January. And right now, as you're reading this, the pre-orders for my debut book have started.

Strands of Joy features 20 versatile colourwork patterns, including sweaters and cardigans as well as an elegant dress, a warming hat and a kid's pullover. The patterns are worked seamlessly from top down. Cast on a mindless two-colour project or let your mind find peace in more complicated knits that require you to stay focused.

Adult sweater and cardigan patterns come in 9–12 sizes and all are graded to fit up to a 62" bust at minimum. The kid's pullover is graded from 6 months to 12 years. And, the book also has one men's pullover and a men's cardigan pattern in it.

Anna Johanna is a knitwear designer from Muurame, Central Finland. She is known for her often-romantic knits with much love for details, textures and colours. Since 2020, this former statistician has been designing full-time. Strands of Joy (Finnish title Onnensäikeitä) is her debut book.

This hardcover book contains: 

• 176 pages
• 20 colourwork knitting patterns (10 sweaters, 7 cardigans, 1 dress, 1 hat, 1 kid's pullover)
• weight: approx. 900 g / 2 lb
• print only, no digital download code available

Printed in Latvia.  

Official release date 19 February, 2021. The pre-orders start today but the book comes from print in February and will be sipped to customers then. I know many were hoping for the book to make it in time for Christmas so all orders from my webshop will receive a pdf card you can slip under the Christmas tree.

You can find a limited batch of the pre-orders on my webshop, You can also get the book over on Laine webshop and lots of their stockists.

Timjami

I've got a new sweater pattern to kick off December.

What: Timjami / Own pattern

How: Circular needle 4.0 mm
From: Tukuwool Fingering + ITO Sensai, 190 + 60 g

I often find inspiration for designing in the yarn itself. That's definitely what happened this time. The Finnish yarn brand, Tukuwool, got two new beautiful green colorways this fall and I fell head over heels for them. This greyish green is called Rohto. What made the colorway especially enticing was the fact that my LYS was full of silk mohairs to pair it up with. I couldn't pick just one so in the end I took three green silk mohairs with me to go with Rohto and started scetching ideas for a sweater.

And so, Timjami came to be. The name is Finnish for Thyme. Timjami is a relaxed, loose sweater worked seamlessly top-down. The design has long raglan sleeves with cute little lace and bobble pattern worked along the raglan seams. The sweater has a  V-neck and a cropped hem with no waist shaping. The sides of the sweater have a bit of twisted ribbing, as do the hem, cuffs and neckband.

The sweater is worked with two yarns, holding the fingering weight main color yarn together with one of the lace weight contrast colour yarns and fading the contrast colour. I worked a couple stripes at the colour change to get a bit of a fade going on but this sweater would work well with clear colour blocks as well. I used three different colours of silk mohair but you can use as many as you like.

I finished my sample in the late summer and I've used it A LOT. Timjami is a very versitile sweater: it goes equally well with jeans and skirts. The best sweaters are the kind that you can pull over any clothes to keep you warm.

The pattern comes with sizes XXS-5XL. You can find Timjami on Ravelry, PayHip and Lovecrafts.

I'm taking part in a Finnish online craft fair this weekend and hence, today on Friday, you can get Timjami and all my pullover patterns for -15% with the code PUSEROPERJANTAI.

On Saturday, use the code LANGANJUOKSU to get 20% discount on all my colourwork designs and on Sunday, the code LANGANKIERTO gets you 15% discount on all my lace designs.